


corpse flower

by dustofwarfare



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blowjobs, Canon Typical Violence, Crimson Flower Route, Death Knight, Disturbing Themes, Edging, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route Spoilers, M!Byleth - Freeform, M/M, Post-Canon, Shippy, consensual but weird, dark fantasies, death knight in love??, emile von bartels - Freeform, jeritza von hrym - Freeform, more than one bed but we end up in one anyway, murder boyfriends, similes for days, talk of murder as foreplay, why do i keep using that tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:46:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22243549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustofwarfare/pseuds/dustofwarfare
Summary: During their strange courtship back at the monastery, Byleth used to bring him roses; blood red, with plenty of thorns. Now he wishes he could have found Jeritza a corpse flower. A rare flower that reeks of death when it blooms, beautiful and deadly, seems the most fitting gift of all.----Byleth and Jeritza, after a battle against Those Who Slither in the Dark, are caught in the rain on their way back to Enbarr. Set post-canon, Crimson Flower route.
Relationships: Jeritza von Hrym/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 67
Kudos: 383





	1. the sound of rain

**Author's Note:**

> Jeritza canonically has **very dark fantasies about killing Byleth.** The sex in this isn't super explicit, but there's some talk about that in bed. Please be advised. 
> 
> Nothing gets me wanting to ship two people more than "I want to kill you and also probably love you," so. Here we are.
> 
> ETA oops it's a multi-chapter. Vignettes, meandering. Probably.

Shambhala reminds Byleth of a poisoned well. 

Cold and dank and deadly, the stone floor is slick with condensation and moss. Byleth slips a few times as he engages the Agarthans in battle, finding his footing just in time to avoid taking a spear to the side.

They fight dirty, the Agarthans. It’s not like the battle tactics Byleth taught his students back at Garreg Mach; all careful maneuvering and terrain considerations, gambits and the proper implementation of battalions. Compared to this, the war against the Church of Seiros was some surreal choreographed ballet of advance, strike, retreat. 

This is a melee proper. It is madness soaked in blood and viscera. It is brutal. 

It is _slaughter._

And Jeritza is in his element.

Byleth thinks he can hear him humming under his breath as he moves, twirling the Scythe of Sariel like some opera dancer’s prop. He might have won the Heron Cup back at the monastery, if it were awarded for something darker and more profane than a genteel waltz. 

The Jackal’s Cup, perhaps. Something that feeds and thrives off the dead. 

This particular skirmish is short, all things considered. Together, Byleth and Jeritza take the small contingent of Those Who Slither in the Dark down like weeds in a garden. These shadowy fiends are no match for either the Death Knight or the Ashen Demon. They are by far the better monsters. 

Jeritza turns to him when the last soldier has been dispatched. His fair hair is smeared with crimson; it looks like blood staining a field of wheat. His smile is distant and cold, his voice a dreamy haze and startlingly loud in the sudden quiet of the underground stronghold. “Are you done, then? None live. There is no longer any sport to be found, here.” 

Byleth looks around. Bodies lie strewn amidst the stones, torn and bloody. A few twitch before going still. The moans of the dying still cling to the walls, even as they fade. 

Byleth nods and follows Jeritza, wondering if the fallen will still be here when they return. If they will be as bones in a tomb, lifeless, unmoved. 

***

Shambhala’s entrance is located in the Hrym territory, next to the Airmid river. The breeze off the water is a welcome change from the stagnant air of the stronghold. Byleth breathes in slowly, trying to chase away the fetid stench of death that lingered below. 

He remembers Mercedes telling him once about corpse flowers; a rare species found in some far-off land, that bloomed only once every seven or so years. They emitted the smell of decay to attract carrion-eating insects, glutted themselves on them, and folded back up to sleep. 

Byleth thinks about this as he returns to their makeshift camp, and sees Jeritza seated by the fire. He watches Byleth shed his muddy boots before settling on his thin bedroll, his pale eyes wide and unblinking like a hawk. He’s terribly lovely in the firelight, even with the Death Knight still shadowing his features, clinging to him like a late frost on an early spring flower.

During their strange courtship back at the monastery, Byleth used to bring him roses; blood red, with plenty of thorns. Now he wishes he could have found Jeritza a corpse flower. A rare flower that reeks of death when it blooms, beautiful and deadly, seems the most fitting gift of all. 

“Do you think that was the last of them, then?” Jeritza sighs, clearly disappointed at the mere thought. “A pity.” 

“I thought you said they were boring.” Byleth wiggles his stocking-clad feet in front of the fire. He presses a hand to his chest, feeling the slow and steady thump of his heartbeat beneath his gloved fingers. It’s not a sensation he’s grown accustomed to quite yet. 

“Yes,” Jeritza says. “But it is better than nothing.” He does not kill for the Empire. No morals command him, no gold bought his services. He kills simply to sate his demon’s lust, and after all the lies and political maneuverings of war, Byleth thinks that’s what draws him to Jeritza in the first place. 

“Are you asking because you want to kill me now?” Byleth asks, head tilted. He’s teasing. Sort of. 

Jeritza’s smile curves wider across his face, as sharp and cold as the blade of his scythe. “I always want to kill you.” 

Byleth just smiles slightly and turns back to the fire, watching the flames devour the wood. He thinks about the dead back in Shambhala. About Edelgard on her throne in Enbarr, the way her boots left tracks of blood on the stairs of the dais as she ascended it post-battle. 

About his father, dead beneath the monastery grass. About Rhea, the Immortal One, splitting the dark with her outraged roar. The spears of light raining holy ire down upon them all, during that last battle. “Maybe in the morning.” 

“By the river is not a bad place to die. I would take care to bury you deep, so the carrion birds did not take your lovely eyes,” Jeritza promises, earnestly. 

“Thanks,” Byleth says, leaning back on his hands and looking up at the sky. There are no stars tonight, only heavy clouds and air that tastes of impending rain. “I’d leave you for the dogs. Eyes and all. I didn’t bring a shovel.” 

Jeritza’s laugh is a sudden bright flash, there and gone like lightning from a far-off storm. “I tire of battling these worthless foes. I would bring you to your knees before me. Take your life slowly, so you felt the pain of it like an eternity. It is what you deserve.” He says it so sweetly, like an endearment. “To kill you quickly is an insult.” 

He’s not the only one who thinks Byleth deserves a slow death; just the only one who thinks it’s a compliment to give it to him.

Honestly. Sometimes Byleth wonders if he should have done something to avoid this, during the war. Flirted with someone else. Given Hubert that expensive coffee he likes, or made more time for tea with Edelgard. Showered Ferdinand with riding boots. Given Felix more swords. 

Instead, Byleth has taken up with a man who thinks Byleth should be taken apart with loving attention and plenty of screams, because to kill him quickly is an insult. A man who wears his sins proudly, like armor. 

***

Despite all his impassioned words of love and murder, Jeritza has never once tried to touch him. Never once raised his scythe in bloody purpose to end Byleth’s now-mortal life, or reached out a hand to caress Byleth in pursuit of those _finer things_ of which he spoke about wanting to discover. 

Byleth waits for it, every night when they make camp. He falls asleep with Jeritza’s gaze on him and wakes up to the same, but other than haltingly sharing some baked treat Mercedes gave him before they set off from Enbarr, Jeritza lays no hand or blade upon him. 

As bizarre as his sensibilities are, one cannot say Jeritza is not loyal to his own twisted principles. Byleth has met goddesses who were dragons and girls who were goddesses, and the only one who ever told him the truth is the man who sighs in rapture at the thought of driving his blade deep into the heart Byleth never knew he was missing. 

Jeritza follows a skewed compass, to be sure. But at least it always points true. 

***

In the morning it starts to rain. 

It’s the sort of rain that makes travel miserable and the mountains thick with fog. They take residence in an empty village on Hrym land, likely abandoned at the start of the war, inside one of the few houses that still has at least a partial roof for cover. Water drips through the ceiling and while there is an abundant supply of wood, it is too damp to light for a fire -- even magic won’t help. There is a sodden mattress that smells like mold and is likely home to bugs and rats, and a trunk thrown open and bare at the foot of the bed; but whatever treasures it once contained are long gone. 

Byleth and Jeritza manage to affix a tarp over a less-damaged section of the ceiling, made from Jeritza’s bedroll and some canvas found shoved in a dusty dresser drawer. 

“It is the rainy season, here,” Jeritza explains. “It will continue for some time.” 

Jeritza is the Viscount Hrym, and though it’s all a lie, these are technically his lands. Byleth had forgotten; and he’s surprised that Jeritza remembers what month it is, to be honest. He seems to mark time in spilled blood, not the moon. 

Byleth and Jeritza arrange themselves as best they can under the haphazard tarp, their backs against the rickety frame of an old dresser, silent while the rain weeps and the wind shrieks around them. 

Byleth leans his head back and closes his eyes. Jeritza is humming some tune, the same one he does when he kills. Byleth falls asleep, and doesn’t dream. 

***

Byleth wakes with a start at the sound of thunder, now directly overhead and rattling the thin bones of their makeshift shelter. There’s a crick in his neck, and he rubs at it with one hand and glances around. Jeritza is staring, watching him sleep. His scythe is out, lying next to him, the rain dripping on the blade and washing off the blood. 

Byleth glances at the scythe. He glances at Jeritza, and raises one eyebrow. 

“I wouldn’t kill you while you slept,” Jeritza says, voice heavy with consternation. “I have told you before, you are no foe to be dispatched. You are to be savored.” 

“That is what you say,” Byleth agrees, shifting, his muscles aching and slightly cramped. He has no idea how long he’s been asleep, but it’s still dark all around them, so he doesn’t think it’s been very long at all. 

Even without the rain, it will take them a few days to return to the imperial capital to make their report. The war hasn’t been over long enough for outlying infrastructures to be repaired, like the roads in and out of this tiny mountain hamlet. 

Byleth switches positions and lies on his back, even though the floor is wet and uneven, riddled with warped wooden planks and exposed nails. He glances up at Jeritza, who is staring at Byleth with a sweet smile, gloved fingers stroking the shaft of his scythe. 

Byleth’s blood warms, and he feels a curl of heat in his stomach, a slight swelling of his cock between his legs. The air between them grows tense with promise, and when Jeritza shifts on his knees and moves closer, sliding his coat from his shoulders, Byleth’s heart kicks up a rapid beat and his breathing becomes uneven. He wonders what will happen, here. Which impulse is guiding Jeritza. What he might want to do with his hands, on Byleth’s willing body. 

Except apparently, it isn’t his hands he wants on Byleth at all. He holds his coat out, an offering. It’s stained with blood, gore and mud on the outside, but lined and dry like any proper knight’s coat would be on the inside. Jeritza’s face is pleasant and hopeful, waiting. 

Byleth pauses, then nods, once. Jeritza drapes the coat over him like a funeral shroud. It smells like death and ruin, smoke and blood -- and just a little bit like roses. Byleth rolls up in it and thinks about corpse flowers, sated and glutted, folding back in on themselves, the opposite of blooming. 

He falls asleep. 

***

They leave the next morning, and it’s a miserable trudge through mud and rocks and thicket, with the both of them sliding and losing their footing a few times. By the time they find their way to an inn, they’re both thoroughly drenched and covered in mud. Byleth’s boots making an undignified squelching sort of sound when he walks. 

Jeritza wipes enough mud off his face for the innkeeper to give a little gasp and a bow, stammering, “V-Viscount Hrym,” and hurrying to prepare two of their best rooms. They’re the only guests -- the inn was out of the way even _before_ the war ground travel to a halt -- but that doesn’t seem to matter, the innkeeper all but scrambling to get a fire lit, water heated for baths, and a hot meal prepared for them both. 

He promises a meal and a bottle of fine Adrestian wine, saying over and over again that they’ll toast the Empire in style. Byleth lets the sound of his pandering fall around him like the rain they’re no longer in, dreaming of a bath and clean clothes. At the moment, being dry seems like more of a victory worthy of a toast. 

The next two hours are pleasant enough, stripping out of his sodden and muddy clothes and handing them over to the wide-eyed laundress who promises to do the best she can to repair them. Byleth doesn’t care about them being repaired as much as he just wants them to be _dry._

The rain hits against the inn, unceasing, too loud to be anything close to pleasant. 

Byleth eats some soup and fresh bread, and it’s the best thing he’s tasted since the day he and Jeritza left the palace for their most recent sojourn into Shambhala. Better still is eating it clean and dry, wrapped up in a thick wool robe and in front of a roaring fire, skin and hair scrubbed clean, his shivers mostly abated. 

Byleth has not seen Jeritza since they climbed the stairs earlier. But he’s heard footsteps going in and out of the room next to him, so he figures Jeritza must be at least getting the same -- if not better -- service. After all, Jeritza is their lord. They don’t know about the Emperor’s fearsome Death Knight. They definitely don’t know about Emile von Bartels. 

They come to clear his dishes and to offer apologies that his clothes aren’t _quite_ ready, and Byleth assures them it is of no matter, the robe is warm and will certainly do him well enough; it isn’t as if he intends to venture outside. When he’s alone again, Byleth douses the lights and stokes the fire, disrobes and climbs into the bed. The sheets are well-worn and soft on his naked skin. 

He should be able to sleep; he’s dry, clean, well-fed, and comfortable. The bed is a far cry from both the hard, warped floor of the abandoned shack _and_ the large down mattresses of the Imperial palace, but it reminds Byleth a bit of his bed at the monastery -- the first bed he’d ever slept in more than a few nights in a row. 

He’s not a man who needs luxuries, but he’s also, apparently, not a man who can sleep. 

Byleth tosses and turns, the sheets tangling around his legs. The warmth of the fire is suddenly stifling, the pillow too flat, the rain a nuisance as it patters against the copper roof.

Byleth watches the shadows on the walls as they flicker and jerk in the firelight. He sees things that are not there; Rhea, face contorted with hatred, shrieking. Flayn, crying out in agony to her father as she fell. Felix, cutting down his father with cut-amber eyes and giving no sign that he was anything but yet another foe. Sothis, vanished into the void, silent. 

His beating heart, thumping in time with the rain. 

Eventually, Byleth gets up and grabs his robe, belting it around his waist. He slips out into the hallway, glances around, and then makes his way to the room next to his. He does not bother to knock. 

***

Jeritza was given clothing in lieu of a robe like Byleth; a simple linen shirt and doeskin breeches. He’s barefoot, and his hair is down and loose around his face. Byleth’s never seen it like that before. He looks younger that way. More like his sister, if you don’t look too long at his eyes. 

The fire in Jeritza’s room is dying, only embers. Byleth is glad of it. He’s already too hot in the robe, the sash tangled in his fingers. He’s nervous like he was back when he first picked up a blade and went out with his father, when it was for real and not practice. 

Jeritza gives him a little bow. “What is it you require?” 

“The rain,” Byleth says, in lieu of what he can’t put into words. “Does it ever stop?” 

“Eventually,” Jeritza says. His eyes are as vacant as the dark glass of the window, visible beyond the shades he hasn’t bothered to draw. He smiles, suddenly; it’s not an expression Byleth sees often on his face, and it makes his heart kick up to see it. “You feel it too, do you not? Of course you do,” he continues, before Byleth can ask, _feel what_? “You are no more suited for these trappings of civility than I. We belong in the dark,” he murmurs, in his lulling voice. “Below ground, where the monsters dwell. Or out there, with things that kill.” 

Byleth isn’t sure that’s it, exactly. But maybe it’s closer than he himself could articulate. “Do you believe in hell?” 

Jeritza nods. “Of course. It is the place that awaits me and my demon, when I draw my last staggering breath. With your sword in my heart, or thinking of mine in yours.” 

Something warm curls low in Byleth’s stomach. Jeritza’s smile doesn’t waver, mad and enticing, wrong and so very _sincere._ “I thought you loved me.” 

“I must,” Jeritza says, smile slipping and brow furrowing. “Is that what this means? I think of you, always. Killing you. Dying for you. Even the Death Knight longs for your blade to pierce us.” He blinks, shaking his head. “Me. Pierce _me_.” 

“You must be tired,” Byleth says, taking a careful step forward. “It’s the only time you speak of him like that.” He is fighting the strangest urge to pull the sash of the robe, to untie it and bare his body to Jeritza’s mad gaze. “You should sleep.” 

“So should you.” Jeritza has a worrying ability not to blink. “Can it be you wish for our duel, after all?” 

_Does being back in the civilized world make you remember what I am_ ? Is what Byleth hears. _Am I acceptable in the dark, when I kill with you, beside you? Here where it is warm, do you think I am a monster?_

Byleth shakes his head. He’s never wanted to kill anyone. It’s just the thing he does, and is good at. It’s what everyone wants from him in the end. Jeritza is just far more honest about it than most -- and probably a lot weirder about it, too. “No.” 

Byleth draws in a breath and moves, carefully. His heart hammers louder, louder. It feels like something trapped inside of him, and he’s not sure he likes it. How do people live like this, feeling this so often? It’s like the rain. Too much, too loud and too _unending_ to be a comfort. 

“Do you want to touch me?” Byleth’s experience in these sorts of things is limited at best. A few fumbling experiments in mercenary camps when he was a teenager; a few wine-drunk nights with soldiers during the war. Never with his students during his year as a teacher. Never with his former students during the war. 

Never with Jeritza, whose eyes followed him like lightning after thunder, but he _wants_. Byleth wants him. Not Jeritza’s blade in his heart, but his hands on Byleth’s body. A different kind of death, maybe. 

Jeritza nods, again. “Yes.” 

Byleth pulls the sash off the robe, tosses it to the floor, but keeps the robe closed with his hand. “You haven’t asked. Or even tried to kiss me.” 

Jeritza blinks as if confused. “No.” 

“I would let you. I would have, last night.” _Before that, probably. Maybe before you left the monastery._ Something about Jeritza always drew Byleth; that solitary blankness, that quiet, passionless disregard. “This isn’t about you killing me. It’s about….” He casts around for the right way to say it. “Discovering finer pleasures.” 

“Our enemies yet live,” Jeritza reminds him. His chivalry is wicked and blood-soaked but no less sincere; he is Ashe’s inverse, a perfect Dark Knight, trustworthy in his own way and loyal to a fault. His principles, unholy though they are, are unwavering. 

Byleth, however, is no knight. He struck them down, the Knights of Seiros, with their own holy relics. Cast their dragon-god to the dark. Byleth is a mercenary. He fights for no principles, gives his loyalty for a price. Edelgard alone understood that the price didn’t always have to be gold, but it _did_ have to be paid. 

He moves closer, and Jeritza tenses -- Byleth is a fighter, and battle-worn enough to know the signs of fight-or-flight even when they’re unintentional. Jeritza will not run, and he’ll only fight if it’s to the death. Byleth doesn’t have any weapons, though maybe that’s not true. His fingers ease up on the fabric of the robe, his breathing unsteady. This is a different kind of battle. 

“Can I touch you?” Byleth stands before Jeritza, tilts his head back to look him in the eyes. “Will you let me?” 

Jeritza stares down at him, eyes going vacant like there’s no one home. Something in the room fees wrong, electric, and there’s a taste like ozone and copper in the back of Byleth’s throat. “He doesn’t need to be here,” Byleth says, carefully. “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Jeritza sighs, almost dejected. “He wants so badly to take you apart. Wants to rend your limbs slowly, feel them tear, hear you sob and break. Make it last for hours. Drench that robe and the bedsheets with your blood. And I --” Jeritza swallows, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. “I am tired tonight, and he is not. I don’t know what I want when it is like this.” 

Byleth knows that this what Jeritza is, will always be; some strange combination of chivalrous knight and bloodthirsty demon, unable to separate his nobility from the Death Knight’s bloodlust. Jeritza is warning him. He might want to kill him, but he wants to do it fairly. As a swordsman, not a monster. Jeritza wants him, but he still doesn’t quite know what he wants to _do_ with him. 

Byleth smiles a little. “Emile,” he says, trying the name out, feeling the shape of it in his mouth. He holds his hand out, lets the fabric of the robe part. “Come to bed with me.” 

Jeritza steps forward, then slowly, so slowly, reaches out and takes Byleth’s hand. Despite all his protestations of love and desire, his promises to spend his life at Byleth’s side, to tumble into hell at Byleth’s side...this is the first time they’ve ever touched. His skin feels hot, like a brand. Like all the fire has been leached out of the hearth and siphoned into his blood. 

“I shall try not to kill you,” Jeritza says, as Byleth pulls him closer. “Tonight, that is all the promise I can make.” 

Byleth shrugs. “It’s good enough,” he says, and kisses him. 

***

What happens between them that night in bed isn’t violent, but the threat of it is there, lingering like the dying embers of the fire. It’s surprisingly gentle given who ( _what_ ) they are, but Byleth thinks they are both holding back. A few times he thinks there’s a hint of red gleaming in Jeritza’s eyes, but it might just be a trick of the light. 

Jeritza allows Byleth’s touch, and it is soon very clear that even Byleth’s limited experience is more than Jeritza’s. He is startled by every brush of Byleth’s fingers on his bare skin, gasping at the ceiling, grasping the bedding in fisted hands like Byleth is torturing him. 

“Hey,” Byleth says, worried, lifting his head from where he’s been kissing at Jeritza’s neck in some vain attempt to calm him. “Do you want me to stop?” 

Jeritza turns to look at him. Byleth is not an easy man to startle, but this very nearly does it; Jeritza’s empty-glass eyes are bright and wild, his face flushed, his mouth parted. “I -- what _is_ this? What are you doing to me? You swore that we would not -- but this is like dying, this is _death_.” 

He’s so weird. Byleth reminds himself of this for the thousandth time, running a hand down Jeritza’s firm chest, the corded muscles of his stomach. His body is gorgeous, all toned and whipcord lean. “It’s supposed to feel good.” 

“I no longer know what that means,” Jeritza says, softly, the usual dreamy haze of his voice sliding into something caught, wild. His eyes burn like stars as he stares up at Byleth. He looks beautiful like this, flayed open and laid bare. 

Byleth smiles and kisses him, tastes the lingering remains of whatever sweet thing they sent him for dessert. Byleth didn’t get dessert. He’s not the Viscount. He also didn’t ask for any. “Does it feel like ice cream tastes?” he asks, against Jeritza’s skin. 

“No,” Jeritza says, reaching up to slide careful fingers through Byleth’s hair. “It feels like slaying. Like wielding my scythe. It feels like blood tastes.” 

….oh. Byleth stills, shivering at the feel of Jeritza’s fingers in his hair. “Is that -- is that all right?” 

“ _Yes_ ,” Jeritza moans, and tightens his hair. 

Byleth grabs him around the throat, squeezes, makes Jeritza’s unfocused eyes snap back to his. “Good,” he says. "I want you to like it." Whatever that means for him, however it translates, that's what Byleth wants. 

Whatever is left of the man Emile von Bartels once was, it is not much. But for a moment Byleth sees it, the knight he might have been, handsome and stalwart and most likely dead, slain for defending the Goddess in the burning city of Enbarr. 

Jeritza reaches up and slides a thumb over Byleth’s bottom lip. Byleth’s cock throbs where it’s pressed against Jeritza’s firm thigh. “He’s yours, too,” he whispers, soft, adoring. “We both are. All of us. All of what I am.” 

“I know.” Byleth carefully wraps his own calloused hand around Jeritza’s cock, which is gratifyingly hard and flushed, lying pressed against Jeritza’s firm stomach. “I am not afraid. Of him, of you. Do you believe me?” 

Jeritza licks his lips, hips pushing up off the bed, trying to fuck into Byleth’s fist. “Yes.” 

Byleth supposes this is very strange, but how could it be anything else? He was something like a goddess, for a bit. Jeritza is still mostly a demon. It will be this way forever. He presses his forehead to Jeritza’s and fists his cock, harder, liking how it makes him gasp and writhe on the bed. “Does he like this?” 

“No,” Jeritza moans, fingers tight on Byleth’s upper arm. “He _hates_ it, he _hates_ you, so much, and that’s why he wants you.” 

“Shh,” Byleth murmurs, kissing him. “Let him hate me. It’s all right.” He smiles against Jeritza’s gasping mouth, feeling wicked, playful in a way that is unfamiliar and rusty. “Tell him to wait until I fuck you. He’ll hate that even more.” 

Jeritza moans and comes all over Byleth’s hand and his own stomach, gasping like he really _is_ dying. Byleth watches, and thinks maybe Jeritza’s desire to kill him is to do this, bring Byleth peace, make him close his eyes and _surrender_. 

Or maybe he just wants to hurt him. Maybe it’s one and the same. Maybe it doesn’t even matter, anymore. 

***

Someone comes in the room, early in the morning. It’s their small little shriek that pulls Byleth from sleep. 

Jeritza is curled behind him, one hand resting around Byleth’s throat, the other on Byleth’s hip. He got Byleth off like this twice last night, hazy voice whispering silky threats in Byleth’s ear while he worked Byleth’s cock with his hand. 

“I would pierce you with my sword here, my precious one,” Jeritza murmured, fingers tracing over Byleth’s heart. “Your heart, skewered and bloody. Ripped from your chest. I would kiss it, _tear it_ with my teeth, _eat it_ , watch you die while I swallowed it whole --” 

Why that made Byelth come, he isn’t sure he wants to know. 

Jeritza rouses as well -- likely drawn out of slumber by the scream. “What is it?” he mumbles, into Byleth’s messy hair. 

“M’lord!” the little maid squeaks. She bobs so many curtseys, Byleth worries she’s going to faint face-first onto the floor. “I -- I’m so sorry!” 

Jeritza lifts his head and gives the maid his usual blank-eyed stare. “Oh. What is it?” 

“I - breakfast!” the maid says, her face bright red. She’s staring resolutely at something near the top of the window. “I -- do you -- breakfast?” 

“Thank you,” Byleth says, when it is clear that Jeritza isn’t going to respond. “Tea, please. Honeyed-fruit blend and a sweet scone, for his lordship. Toast, for me. That’ll be enough.” He uses the same voice he used at the monastery to teach, the same one he used on the battlefield to kill. It’s an effective voice. 

The little maid bobs another curtsy, turns, and runs into a chair. It falls over with a clatter. 

Jeritza sighs and sits up, apparently uncaring that he’s disheveled and naked and in bed with someone who is also both of those things. He glances at the girl with little interest. “Your terror does nothing for me. Go on and stop knocking things over.” 

Byleth sighs, loudly, as all his good work is undone by Jeritza’s -- being Jeritza. The girl makes it out of the room in record time. “She’ll be seeking other employment before the tea steeps.” 

“Perhaps somewhere they shall teach her how to knock, first.” 

Byleth is startled into a laugh, but it’s probably not meant as a joke. He stretches, noticing the rain has eased up and no longer sounds like a thousand tiny armies beating against the roof. “We can head to Enbarr today, once our clothes are cleaned. If you haven’t terrorized the laundress away, too.” 

“Hmm? Yes.” Jeritza is staring down at him, looking remarkably alert; his eyes are clear and a bit more present, and his voice isn’t quite the same distant drawl as usual. “I grow weary of those creatures, they no longer present a challenge. We will tell the Emperor to find us better sport.” 

Byleth tenses for a moment at the _we_ , until he realizes that Jeritza means the two of _them,_ not the Death Knight. He’s also stroking Byleth’s side, clearly in no hurry to move. His skin doesn’t feel like it’s burning to ash, like last night. “How do you feel?” Byleth asks, cautiously. “You seem different.” 

Jeritza shrugs. “This creature inside of me, you rouse it more than any other...but you satisfy it, too. You allow me to sate its bloodlust by killing your Emperor’s enemies, though he will soon grow bored of that. It liked watching you writhe and hearing you cry out when I pleasured you. I think it thought I was killing you. It might be disappointed this morning to see you still breathe.” 

“And you?” Byleth asks, running his fingers through Jeritza’s thick hair. “Are you disappointed?” 

“Of course not. I woke with my hand around your neck. How could I be disappointed?” 

“You called the Death Knight an _it_ ,” Byleth says. “Last night you said _we_ . Sometimes you call it a _him_.” 

“It is _me_ , Byleth,” Jeritza says, and Byleth thinks it is maybe the first time Jeritza has ever used his name. “And I am it. Sometimes it is like a fog, and it is all that I can see. But even then, you are there, and I -- I can see you, in the midst of it.” 

Byleth leans back against him, looking up into Jeritza’s pale icy eyes. “You’re not going to say something like, _you’re the light that guides me_ , are you?” he teases, raising Jeritza’s scarred hand and kissing it. 

Jeritza smiles down at him. “No,” he says. “There’s no light left in either of us. But I can still see you in the dark. And that is enough.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. Not much does. Byleth thinks nothing much ever will. 

Byleth has been many things; a mercenary, a son, a husk, a shell, a professor, a goddess, a devil, a rebel, a commander, a victor. In some other life, on some other path, maybe he would have been that light in the dark. Illuminating and holy and all the things the Church wanted him to be. 

But on this path of crimson he chose to walk, he became something else. He walked not with the holy light of illuminating truth, but bore the dark flame of disillusion, sowing seeds of discontent and doubt. Winter’s frost. The bloom of the corpse flower.

_There’s no light left in either of us. But I can still see you in the dark. And that is enough._

It will have to be. 


	2. follow some other storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Continue,” he demands, staring up at the domed skylight smeared with dark rain. “Slay me with your wicked mouth. _Murder_ me.”
> 
> ____________
> 
> In which Jeritza keeps himself together having tea with his sister, then falls apart for Byleth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops this is a multi-chapter now maybe?? IDK I just wanted to write Jeritza's POV because writing dreamy-voiced demon-infested knights is a thing i'm into?? 
> 
> anyway usual warnings for this chapter, like, it's jeritza. if you're reading a ship fic about the death knight i feel like you're with me on knowing what to expect *jazz hands*

“Emile!” Mercedes smiles at him, seated in one of the gardens, a tray of sweets on the low table in front of her. She cradles a steaming cup of tea between her hands, and another rests in front of the spot meant for him. 

Jeritza bows politely, even if he does not like it that she uses that name for him. It is not his name, not anymore. “Hello, sister.” 

Mercedes smile is sweet. “Please, sit! And help yourself, I made far too many cakes for just me.” 

Jeritza arrays himself on the ground, legs crossed, hands on his knees. He studies her, the tea, the sweets she’s placed on the table. He takes one of the sticky cakes and tears it into pieces, watching her. 

_Tear her throat out,_ the Death Knight urges, soft as rain. _She will scream. It will be beautiful._

He puts a piece of the sweet in his mouth. The taste of the sugared icing is sharper than usual, more intense. His demon hisses as Jeritza picks up his tea, sips it, feels the hot burn of the honeyed liquid. It is very hot. 

“I hope you weren’t injured on your expedition,” Mercedes says, still smiling. Like her blood and his are the same. Like his is not poison. 

He shakes his head, slowly. “I was not, no. The Agarthans posed no real challenge.” It would have been boring, perhaps, if not for Byleth being beside him. 

“Good.” The wind plays with her hair. It is the same color as his. They look alike, or would, if his eyes were those of a man and not a monster. “I’m glad. And it was...successful?” 

Mercedes doesn’t like to talk about killing. When she came to the battlements at Garreg Mach, a strip of white fabric tied around the tip of her lance, she’d made it clear what her defection to the Emperor’s side meant. 

_I will heal for you, and your allies. But I will not kill for you._

Images flare hot like a spell behind Jeritza’s eyes, of the time spent below ground with Byleth. The scythe singing in the dark. The screams of the soldiers he killed. The way the blood tasted on his mouth. Sweet like the cakes, hot like the tea. 

“Emile?” Her soft brow creases in concern. “Should I not ask you about your mission? You seem unsettled.” 

Sometimes he does not know how to answer the questions she asks about such normal things. Everything that is tangled hot inside of him make it hard to speak. It is so much easier to let his demon sing and tease, whisper sick fancies like bells ringing in his head. To speak to her, most days, is tiring. It is not easy to pretend to be what she is. 

Jeritza sighs and puts the cup down. “I think that it is better if you do not ask, Mercedes.” 

The crease between her brow eases when he uses her name. She nods, once, and picks up her tea. It sloshes over the rim of the cup, spilling a bit on the tablecloth. There are times he would not be able to look away from it -- would see other spilled things, other stains, like blood on fresh snow. 

“I’m sorry, Emile. Is it all right that I call you that?” For all her sweetness and faith, his sister is clever and she knows he dislikes the name he was given at birth. 

It is the way of healers, isn’t it? To root out the problems, the sickness, and call it out by name. You cannot heal a wound if you cannot find it, nor cure a disease if you do not know what it is. To kill requires no such subtlety or grace. 

Her eyes are so pretty, like the sky when it isn’t raining. Jeritza loved her, once, a long time ago. Killed someone just to keep her safe. “Today, it is all right,” he says. It’s all the answer he can give. 

Her eyes light up when she smiles. They _shine_. People’s eyes do that when they cry, too. When they beg. “I was a little worried,” the soft-eyed thing says. “When you were not back when expected.” 

The soft-eyed thing -- _Mercedes, it is Mercedes, she is my sister --_ worries for him. She should not. He is a better monster than those things that slither in the dark. “It was raining,” he says, by way of explanation. “That is why we were delayed. We had to stay in the mountains because of the rain.” 

It is not raining now, but the sky is full of clouds that are heavy with it. Jeritza thinks of his demon in the same way. There, barely leashed, waiting to break free. He shivers a little. It is not unpleasant. He does not hate his sister, today. And he does not hate the Death Knight, either. 

“You used to like the rain,” Mercedes says, nibbling on another cake. “When we were little.” 

And then, a memory; he and Mercedes, both young and hand-in-hand, walking outside in the rain. “We would jump in the puddles,” he says, slowly, eyes half-closed. It’s elusive and fragile, this memory, but it’s there. “I liked to splash you. You would laugh.” 

“Yes!” Her smile is blinding. “We did! Mother became cross because we ruined our coats.” Her eyes shine wet but she is not crying _or_ begging. Her small hand presses for a moment above her heart, over her chest. “I’m so glad you remember that, Emile.” 

He might not remember it, tomorrow. Jeritza shrugs. “I also ruined my coat this time. The mountains are full of mud.” He sips the tea. It isn’t quite as hot as it was at first, but it’s still warm. The breeze picks up a bit, strands of Jeritza’s hair blowing into his face. It tickles. He pushes it away with a frown. 

He does not often notice things like this; the breeze, hot tea, the tickle of loose strands of hair against his face. 

“That sounds dangerous.” Mercedes pushes the plate of sweets toward him, as if the sugar can melt the poisonous thing he is from inside. “Did you have to camp? I confess, I would not mind avoiding camping for the foreseeable future. I did quite enough of that during the war.” 

“No, Byleth and I stayed at an inn,” Jeritza says. The thought of what happened at the inn, with Byleth, makes Jeritza’s face heat, the tips of his ears turn red. Death Knight and heartless murderer he may be, but Jertiza is still a nobleman and this is not proper conversation to have with his sister. 

She giggles. Sometimes the sound makes him want to smash the porcelain cup and take the jagged edges, dig it into his palm. Or slit her throat so her smile is blood-slick and fatal, so her eyes stop shining and go blank as his own. 

Today he just glances away and pretends he isn’t blushing, taking another bite of the tea cake and another long sip of his tea. 

“I’m glad the Professor was there to weather the storm with you, then,” she says, shoulders gently shaking. She’s teasing him.

Even a long time ago, when he was always Emile von Bartels instead of just sometimes borrowing him, Jeritza was never very good at small talk. Now the Death Knight is pushing like the rain against the clouds, and Jeritza is suddenly loathe for it to be here with the two of them. Byleth knows the thing he is and handles it like a swordmaster handles a blade. 

His sister’s talents lie elsewhere.

The Death Knight hates Mercedes. Mercedes hates the Death Knight. Jeritza, in his own violent and awkward way, loves them both. 

“Thank you for the cake,” he says, to her. There is a tenuous desire there, beneath the confusion and haze and low growl of his demon, to make her smile again before he leaves. “I will take one of these to Byleth,” he says, lifting the cake. 

She smiles at that. Mercedes reaches out for his hand, slowly, giving him plenty of time to refuse the touch. Today, he does not pull away. Her touch is soft. The demon stirs, the rain starts to fall, and Jeritza decides it is time to go while he is still the man his sister so badly wants him to be. 

*** 

It begins to rain as Jeritza makes his way to the house he shares with Byleth. It’s nothing like the rain from the mountains; that deluge that could wash out a road, tear a bridge off its supports and hurtle the broken pieces down the slopes like a discarded child’s toy. This is gentle, like his sister’s soft smile. But unrelenting, like her calling him _Emile_ and squeezing his hand, wrapping up sweets for him to carry home. 

(Like her magic dragging souls away from death, easing pain and closing wounds.)

Jeritza is soaked by the time he gets to the house and pushes open the door. It is a small house, quiet; they had rooms in the palace for a time. All the people there, they echoed like a heartbeat. Jeritza could not sleep in the din. 

Byleth is not home yet. Jeritza walks up the stairs and into the bedroom, stops in front of the mirror. His hair is soaked and plastered to his face, and there is water dripping off his nose, his chin. 

Jeritza does not often look at himself. He touches his face with his bare fingers, which are slightly chilled. He can remember lying on his back, Byleth leaning over him, the way his fingers slid into Jeritza’s mouth. 

The thought makes him warm, makes the Death Knight uncurl like a great sleeping beast and snarl at him, pacing, wanting to hunt. It is too quiet in this house. He wonders where Byleth has gone and if he will be back soon. Jeritza slides his fingers into his own mouth and sucks on them. 

It does not feel like it did when Byleth did it. He bites, but the pain is meaningless and unsatisfying. 

There is the sound of a door opening, the quiet _pit-pat_ of boots on the floor. He’s only hearing Byleth because Byleth knows better than to sneak up on him. Jeritza pulls his fingers out of his mouth, but he doesn’t stop looking at his reflection. His eyes are cold and still, like a farm pond in winter and just as empty. 

Byleth enters, dressed in black, the little half-smile on his face that makes Jeritza’s body go liquid and strange. “Hello. You’re all wet.” 

“It’s raining,” Jeritza says. His eyes track Byleth as Byleth moves to stand behind him, their eyes meeting in the mirror. 

Byleth is so _pretty_ , all smooth and bright like a mosaic of stained glass. But Jeritza likes how he looks when he’s covered in blood and sweat and battle-grime the most, like artwork made profane. He smiles at Byleth in the mirror. 

Byleth smiles back, and moves in so he’s right behind Jeritza. “I guess we should get us both warmer coats.” Byleth’s hair is damp, and this close, he smells vaguely of petrichor. His eyes in the mirror are the color of the pond back at Garreg Mach. Jeritza always liked that pond. “How is Mercedes?” 

“She is well. I remembered that we once used to walk through puddles together.” Jeritza watches himself shrug in the mirror. “I do not know if I like that. Remembering.” The Death Knight snaps and howls like a warhound. “It certainly does not.” 

“It doesn’t like things that make you human, that’s why.” Byleth’s voice is always so even, like warm tea on a cold day, or cool rain on a sweltering one. Nothing too much to shock the senses, just an easy comfort. 

Jeritza inclines his head. “I would say that is true, yes. How long will we be here?” 

“I’m not sure,” Byleth says. He moves a little closer. Jeritza’s breathing picks up. He doesn’t always know what to do with this feeling, like battle but without anything in sight that he can kill. “Is that all right?” 

“I suppose so,” Jeritza says. “For now.” 

“You should get out of those wet clothes.” Byleth reaches out, and like Mercedes, it’s clear he’s allowing for Jeritza to move away if he wishes. Jeritza does not wish. Byleth’s hand settles on Jeritza’s shoulder, burning like a brand even through his damp clothes. “You’re shivering from cold.”

Jeritza remembers the inn, being naked and warm, Byleth’s hand on his cock. His eyes flicker from the mirror to the bed behind them, big enough for the two of them. “It is not from cold that I shiver.” 

Byleth’s smile is sharp, wicked as a dagger. 

***

Jeritza lies on his back in the bed, trembling and gasping in the dark. The storm inside him builds and builds but does not yet break, kept at bay by Byleth’s clever hands and hot mouth. Jeritza writhes like some felled foe impaled on the end of his blade, overcome and pierced but not yet dead. 

Byleth has the uncanny ability to both quiet _and_ rouse Jeritza. He always has, ever since they were first introduced at the monastery. Jeritza recognized Byleth immediately as a danger, less for his skills as a mercenary and more because of that stillness, that vacant _emptiness_ in his eyes. 

Like calls to like, and Jeritza knew even then that Byleth was something _other._ Like himself. So he kept his distance, though he watched Byleth often. Thought about him, too, at night in his bed with his hand on himself. 

Jeritza killed Byleth a thousand times in his fantasies, and was killed by him a thousand more. Only a handful of times did those fantasies go to other places before that inevitable end, and they were hazy, blurry things at best. Jeritza knew what it was to kill someone, not fuck them. 

The reality of it, though...it isn’t that different, not really. Pleasure is all tension and release, delivered unto him by Byleth’s sword-calloused hands. He, too, has used his hand to work Byleth into that same lovely state of desperation, Byleth’s lean body bowstring-taut, Jeritza mercilessly stroking him until Byleth spilled himself with a cry over Jeritza’s fist. 

It isn’t crossed blades and agony and blood, but it is close enough. 

(For now.) 

Byleth’s mouth is hot as he kisses down Jeritza’s chest and stomach. Jeritza’s fingers are buried in the bedding beneath him, twisting them like ropes. Byleth is settling between his spread legs, his tongue tracing a silvered scar from a long time ago, before Jeritza was the Death Knight, before he was _Jeritza._ His father’s lance, teaching him a lesson about covering his weak side. It’s the oldest of all his scars, and he remembers how it hurt, the bright pain, how he’d cried. 

( _Good,_ his father had said, watching him writhe on the ground with dispassionate eyes. _Maybe if it hurts enough, you’ll learn your lesson._

And oh, he had.) 

“Jeritza.” Byleth glances up, all wide luminous eyes and mussed hair, stroking Jeritza’s hard cock with his calloused hand while he speaks. “I want to use my mouth on you. May I?” 

The way Byleth asks makes it seem like a challenge, and Jeritza may be the Death Knight but he’s still a _knight_. He does not make a habit of walking away from challenges. “You may.” 

Byleth lowers his head and takes Jeritza’s cock in his mouth. The sensation takes a few seconds to register, and when it does -- Jeritza’s head goes back and he moans, loudly. It feels like he’s being _slaughtered_ by pleasure. The thought makes his legs open wider, makes his thighs tremble and the long muscles of his calves tense up. 

He always wanted Byleth to take him apart, didn’t he? 

The Death Knight stirs, lurking in the shadows beneath the bright burning pleasure of Byleth’s mouth. It rumbles like thunder, the storm growing closer, more imminent. 

“That -- ah.” Jeritza has seen enough people caught in their death-throes to know what is happening to him. “You are -- you are _killing_ me,” he says, voice heavy with lust and rapturous desire. “As I’ve always wanted…!” 

Byleth pulls off, tormenting him beautifully by stopping when Jeritza is so close to the end. “I am not trying to kill you,” he says, voice husky. “It’s not supposed to feel like you’re dying, it’s supposed to feel good. Pleasure. Remember?” 

But it _does_ feel like he’s dying. And Jeritza _likes_ it, wants more -- he grabs at Byleth’s hair with desperate fingers and tugs, wordless, and Byleth gives a soft low chuckle and rewards Jeritza with a lick on the sensitive head of his cock. “You are very weird. And that’s coming from me.” 

He doesn’t sound like he minds, so Jeritza ignores the words as he always does on the field of battle, and pulls Byleth’s hair again. “Continue,” he demands, staring up at the domed skylight smeared with dark rain. “Slay me with your wicked mouth. _Murder_ me.” 

Byleth’s breath huffs out in a laugh over Jeritza’s cock, but he says nothing -- simply goes back to what he’s doing, murdering Jeritza with his quick tongue and hot mouth, sliding it up and down, staring up at Jeritza the whole time without blinking. 

Jeritza stares back, feeling himself near the edge of release -- and then Byleth stops, _again_ , hand squeezing the base of his cock and keeping Jeritza from spilling into his mouth. 

“You will finish me,” Jeritza growls, eyes narrowed. 

“Mmm,” Byleth says, though it isn’t really an answer and it is certainly not a promise. “Your eyes are glowing. That must be your Crest.” 

It does that, sometimes, when he fights -- makes his eyes glow red. Jeritza has himself propped up with one hand on the mattress and the other still tangled in Byleth’s hair. “If you do not wish to finish me, _I_ will finish _you_.” 

“Wait your turn.” Byleth takes him in his mouth again. He hums, and Jeritza feels it everywhere, the pleasure coiling in his stomach and he wants -- he -- he’s so close, and he’s going to -- 

Byleth stops, _again_. Jeritza makes a sound and thrashes, kicking at Byleth, at the bed, growling a sound of pure frustration -- and yet. “I have never seen you toy with those you kill before.” 

“For the last time, Jeritza, I am not killing you. But I know you like a fight.” Byleth curls his hand once more around the base of his cock, keeping Jeritza right _there_ , poised on the knife’s edge of pleasure. “So I thought you wouldn’t want me to make it easy.” 

“You play with things you shouldn’t,” Jeritza hisses down at him, breathing hard. “You would rouse _it_ , wake it up?” 

Byleth studies him with those moon-bright eyes. “I’m not afraid of your demon, Jeritza,” he says, all hard-won confidence and self-assured authority. “Let it come if it wants. Maybe it will learn to like something other than killing, too.” 

Jeritza would say that was impossible -- and, in fact, he tries to say that. He gets as far as, “Imp--” and then Byleth takes him in his mouth again, and this time Jeritza’s cock hits the back of Byleth’s throat, and Byleth _swallows_ and -- 

The Death Knight comes forth, Jeritza comes in Byleth’s mouth, and the storm breaks. 

***

Jeritza is not entirely himself when he pins Byleth down on his back, wrists held tight above Byleth’s head, and grinds himself against Byleth until Byleth comes wet and messy between them. 

Jeritza whispers things in Byleth’s ear as he grinds his thigh against Byleth’s hard cock. It’s a mix of promises to stay by his side, to kill for him, to kill _him_ , to slay his enemies, to _become_ his enemy, all sorts of sweet and terrible words that spill like honeyed poison from his lips. He is desperate and overcome, drowning from the sheer intensity of his bloodlust and his _love_ , and when Byleth comes between them Jeritza bites his shoulder hard enough to draw blood. 

The copper-sweet taste makes his cock throb, and the Death Knight howl, and Byleth flip them so that Jeritza is on his stomach with an arm twisted behind his back, panting against the pillow, the taste of blood still a tease on his tongue. 

“You can bite, if you can stop,” Byleth says, not sounding as if he’s winded at all from getting Jeritza on his stomach and pinned like they’re grappling. 

_We will not stop until the flesh rends and tears and the heart pulses and the veins bleed --_

“Tonight,” Jeritza manages, breath hot, the silk pillowcase cool against the side of his flushed face. “Tonight I can stop.” He means that, he thinks, head still swimming from sex and what it’s like to feel so much pleasure so far from a battlefield. 

“All right.” Byleth lets go of his arm and moves, lies back on the bed and puts his arms behind his head.

Jeritza moves so he’s kneeling next to Byleth, breathing hard, hair tangled and hanging in his face. “You really are not afraid of it. Of me.” 

Byleth shakes his head. “No. I’m really not.” That preternatural calmness of his runs so deep and cold, like a well. “I understand it. I understand you. And I want you. Want you to have what you want. So.” He tilts his chin up, that same odd little smile on his face. “Come take it.” 

Jeritza crawls over and braces on all fours above Byleth. He shifts his weight and takes Byleth’s chin in his fingers. “What are you?” he asks, studying the endlessness of Byleth’s strange eyes. Not human, or not entirely -- Jeritza, better than anyone, understands _that_. But what? 

Byleth’s hands are free. He reaches out and smooths back Jeritza’s hair. “I don’t know,” Byleth says. “Not anymore.” His fingers trace lightly over Jeritza’s mouth. “Maybe once I would have been able to answer, but not now. What are you?” 

“Yours,” Jeritza says, before he can think better of it. “I am _yours_.” The Death Knight burns like fire behind his eyes. Jeritza tastes sulfur and ash when he speaks, voice soft as a prayer. “We both are.” 

Byleth smiles. “I know.” He reaches up and slides a hand around Jeritza’s neck, pulling him down to kiss him. “And I know it hates that, but do you?” 

Jeritza thinks about it. “Not today,” he says, as honest as he can be. “But tomorrow, I might.” 

Byleth kisses him again. “Then tomorrow,” he says, shifting so that he can press Jeritza’s face against his chest. “You’re not allowed to bite.” 

Jeritza presses a soft, gentle kiss against Byleth’s skin. And then, he _bites_ \-- hard enough to tear skin, to make Byleth bleed, to leave an angry red mark above where his heart beats, steady and strong in the dark.


	3. dark streak in my ways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Only you would offer murder as a gift.” Byleth leans in and presses a kiss to his shoulder.
> 
> \---
> 
> In which Jeritza thinks murder is a present you give your friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the new Bernie and Jeritza bff supports, DLC. 
> 
> (CW: mentions of past abuse for both Jeritza and Bernadetta, and implied murder, because it's Jeritza.)

Jeritza stands at the edge of the large ballroom, fingers curled around the edges of his water goblet. He does not care for wine. Adrestians prefer reds, and the taste is too bitter for his tongue, the color too vivid for his demon. 

He hopes they are not going to stay long. From his spot near the balcony doors, Jeritza glances toward where Byleth is speaking to the Emperor. She is flanked by her tall, angular shadow and the other one, the one with the bright eyes and the long copper hair. That one likes to talk as much as Jeritza likes to kill. 

He sips his water, eyes lingering on Byleth. He’s already forgotten what this function is for and why they are there. 

A slow careful glance around the ballroom does not reveal Mercedes, though he sees the captain of the Imperial Guard, Felix, dark-haired and scowling with a hand on his sword. Jeritza spars with him, sometimes. He is very gifted with his blade, and he talks far less than most of them. 

Jeritza feels restless, too hot, and sips again at his water, cold as a mountain spring. His eyes flicker to the balcony, sees the doors standing open. Byleth will find him there, when it is time to go. They understand each other. 

Outside it is not much cooler, though the breeze is nice enough. Jeritza carefully sets the water goblet on the ledge of the railing, placing his hands on the rough stone, and looks out toward the city. It is peaceful enough, buildings lit up bright like stars. 

“Oh -- Jeritza?” 

“What?” He turns his head, just slightly, and sees the shadow of a small person standing in the doorway. She is not a stranger. Jeritza turns all the way around and bows. It feels stiff and unfamiliar to do these courtly things. 

But he knows her. Small, purple hair framing a face entirely made up of wide, gray eyes. The little archer. She once fainted at the sight of him. The armor, he thinks. She did not like the look of it. 

“Hi!” She squeaks a little, but not as much as she used to. Her smile trembles and her hands clasp in front of her, but she takes a small step, and then another, toward him. “It’s -- do you mind if I join you?” 

He shakes his head. She is pleasant enough company, he supposes. 

She steps next to him and mimics his pose, small hands on the ledge. “Lots of people in there,” she says, sighing. She peeks down over the ledge. “Wonder if I could just. Jump down. Escape.” 

“Yes,” he says. “You could jump. But you would break your leg. Perhaps both of them.” 

“Oh, hah, well!” She gives a nervous little laugh. “It might be preferable. I hate crowds.” 

“Then why are you here?” he asks her. 

“Why are _you_?” she asks, tilting her head to look up at him. “You don’t like crowds, either!” 

“Byleth,” he says, shrugging. “His presence was requested by the Emperor. I shall always go where he goes.” 

“Oh, that’s -- romantic, really,” she says, sighing a little. Her smile trembles less now, her shoulders easing. 

Jeritza knows very little about romance. Byleth courted him with patience and roses and endless cups of tea, lazy kisses and the occasional unusual or rare weapon. Jeritza responded with the wicked curve of his scythe, taking his place at Byleth’s side on the battlefield, blood-soaked and adoring. 

He frowns. “You dislike people,” he says. “Why do you come here, if no one bids you attend?” 

“Oh, I -- Lady Edelgard wanted me to,” she says. “And I didn’t, um. I didn’t have. An excuse? Not to come.” She flushes. “I sound stupid, huh.” 

“No,” he says, shaking his head. Talking with her is like a puzzle, sometimes. “I am simply confused. I know you dislike crowds, you have told me as much. Do you wish me to leave you alone?” 

“No, no, of course not,” she says. “I’m not afraid of you, not -- er. Less than I am, say, of some other people. I used to be afraid of Hubert but he’s not that bad, really! Ferdinand, though...he talks so much, and I -- well, now _I’m_ talking too much, so…” she breaks off and laughs, like she used to. 

“I have forgotten,” Jeritza says to her, “how strange you are.” 

Her wide eyes stare up at him, her mouth opening slightly -- and then she laughs, and all at once, all her nervous tension eases away and she relaxes. She is rather like her favorite weapon; tense and strung until the arrow flies, until the bow settles back into familiar lines. “Maybe I should borrow your armor.” 

“It would not fit you,” he says. The thought of her in his death’s head mask makes him smile. “You would not appear frightening as much as comical.” 

“Ouch, critical hit,” she murmurs, with a quieter sort of smile, a softer laugh. “Yeah, I would. Maybe I should get my own. Or maybe I should just -- get over it.” 

Jeritza knows her name. _Bernadetta von Varley._ She is the daughter of a count. “Why do you not return home, to your lands? They are near my own. It is quieter there. Less crowded. You would not be bothered by people.” 

The edge of her mouth cuts up like a wound. “Just one person.” 

Jeritza draws himself up to his full height. He towers above her even dressed in his noble’s finery. “Is there someone who vexes you, Lady Varley?” 

She blinks, and two spots of warm color blossom on her cheeks beneath her moon-drop eyes. “I had forgotten that you - you were from House Hrym. That your lands were near my own.” 

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I was placed there after I murdered my family. But I am, I suppose, the viscount. Who is it, then, that bothers you?” Wait. This is a story he knows well. “Your father.” 

“We do not get along,” she says, stiffly, rigid now as any of her arrows. “I -- guess it’s easier to stay here than go back. He’ll want me to marry and I don’t want that. No need to bring anyone else into -- well. He’s just not a very nice man. That’s all.” 

Jeritza did not get along with his father, either. There are memories becoming confused in the back of his mind; a man with hair a shade darker than his own, flat eyes, an ugly laugh. 

_Let the bitch stay in Faerghus, but bring the whelp home. There’s something_ wrong _with this one. She bears the same Crest. I can have more sons._

“Do you and Byleth want to come visit Varley?” she asks, dryly, and takes up his goblet. She sips it, then frowns. “This isn’t wine.”

“I dislike wine. Would you like me to kill your father?” 

Bernadetta drops the goblet. It goes tumbling from her grasp over the railing, followed by a spray of water as she spits it out. She begins coughing, hunching over herself. Down below, there is an outraged shout. 

“Do you require healing?” he asks. He has no talent for faith magic. He shall have to fetch Byleth for that. 

She shakes her head, vehemently, then slowly drags in a few deep, shuddering breaths. “I -- oh, no! I’m so sorry -- the goblet, I dropped it!” 

“It is of no importance.” Jeritza watches her while she gets her breath back, patient, polite. “Shall I procure you wine, then?” 

“No, no, really, you’re -- fine, Jeritza, thank you, I just didn’t expect you to, ah. Say that, quite so. Um. Just. Like you did.” Bernadetta waves a hand. “I should really maybe. Go?” 

“Is that a no?” Jeritza asks. “I dislike thinking that you would be required to stay here, in a place you do not care for, because of one man easily killed. I have killed scores of men. Your father would be no true challenge. Byleth and I shall pass through Varley when next we sortie.” Shambhala, where they fight the Agarthans, is close to Varley lands. “I will bring you his head, if you like. Though I am not sure how long we will be gone, it might not keep. Perhaps we shall have to do it on our way back. Yes.” Jeritza nods, pleased. “That makes more sense.” 

“Jeritza, you -- no, please don’t kill my father,” she says, her voice going high, squeaky. 

He stares down at her. “You wish him to live?” 

“I--” she stops, biting her lip. “I want to go home,” she says, in a small, miserable voice. “But I don’t really know where that is, anymore? I liked the monastery, but that’s because I felt safe there.” 

Jeritza thinks about being small, six or seven, hiding in the closet with his sister’s hand over his mouth and her voice in his ear, so soft, a whisper-- 

_Emile, don’t make any noise, shhh, it’s all right, they’re just arguing, like people do sometimes, like when I take the last tart that you wanted and you’re cross with me. Hush, little brother, they’ll finish and then we - we can come out of here and we can go for a walk in the rain, would you like that?_

Crashing, sobbing, the sound of something breaking. Someone screaming. Other sounds he didn’t understand, his father grunting, his sister trying to drown their mother’s pained whimpers with whispered lullabies in his ear full of desperate, made-up words. 

“Is that why you stay in the capital? Because he does not make you feel safe?” 

“I -- think maybe I shouldn’t answer that.” She takes a deep breath. “Hubert offered, too. To, um. Have him...gone.” 

“He is skilled with death magic,” Jeritza says. “It would be relatively quick, painless. Is that what you want? If not, I know how to do it so that he will squirm and beg --” 

“Ah!” Bernadetta shakes her head and coughs again, though she is not drinking anything this time. But then there’s a small smile on her face, and something glints in her eyes, something he remembers seeing in his own face when he would drag himself out of that closet with Mercedes; some darkness planted like a seedling in damp earth, waiting to grow and flower in full. 

“You may use the scythe, if you like,” he offers, and bows. “Though like my armor, I think you would find it too cumbersome on your frame. It would be best if I did it.” 

“No, I think that’s -- all right. I wouldn’t want you to do that. You...well, I don’t know precisely what you, um, do? When you and Byleth leave the capital. But I think assassinations are all, uh, Hubert’s thing.” 

“I know little of assassinations,” Jeritza says. “My activities are never so clandestine in nature, though perhaps the reasons behind them are. I simply will detour to your father’s house and kill him for you.” 

Bernadetta just stares at him. “I -- I could do it,” she says, as if she’s speaking to someone else. “I did it during the war. I killed people. People I knew, sometimes. I shouldn’t -- I couldn’t ask that of you.” 

Jeritza does not understand. “Why not?” He cannot imagine why she should hesitate to ask _him_ , of all people, to kill someone. 

“I just.” Bernadetta sighs. “I don’t want you to do that. The war’s over. You should get to do, you know. Other stuff you might enjoy doing! Like, um.” She blinks those big eyes up at him. “Whatever it is you like.” 

Jeritza tilts his head. He thinks about the sorts of things he likes. “Do you mean Byleth?” 

Her face turns almost the same shade as the wine he doesn’t drink. “Um. S-Sure? But what I mean, really, is that you’ve already done enough for me. And you shouldn’t hurt someone for -- for me. Ol’ Bernie wants you to be happy, okay?” 

She steps a little closer, which is surprising, and reaches a hand out very carefully. No one ever touches him but Byleth and his sister, but he finds he does not step away as she places a hand on his arm. It is only there for a moment, light like the breeze. 

“It was always kind of you to eat with me, and I do appreciate it, but...I don’t think you’re _just_ the Death Knight, you know. You’re -- you’re a person, too! And I don’t want you to have to kill for me.” 

“I do not understand you,” he says. “It would not bother me to end his life, swiftly or painfully, as you would prefer. Unless you do not wish him dead.” 

“It’s just -- I don’t want you to kill anyone for me. You’ve been hurt enough.” She sweeps a bow. “Please take care, okay?”

“All right,” Jeritza says and bows back. He watches her go, frowning. He does not understand what she means, or why killing her father would hurt _him_. He does not know the man. But he knows fathers who make their children afraid, and to end him would bring Jeritza pleasure, not pain. 

He does not go back into the ballroom. Byleth finds him there, later, still staring out into the dark. 

***

Jeritza cannot stop thinking about the strangeness of the conversation. It is... _distracting_ him. 

He’s lying on his back in bed, Byleth above him, hands warm on Jeritza’s chest. He’s kissing at Jeritza’s neck, which Jeritza likes, and Byleth’s hand is slowly moving over his cock. But Jeritza cannot lose himself in the pleasure of Byleth’s touch, as he usually can when they do this sort of thing. 

He puts a hand out and pushes gently at Byleth’s shoulder. 

Byleth, ever attuned to his moods, moves back immediately. “Is everything all right? You’ve been quiet since we left.” 

Jeritza gives him a _look._ “I am always quiet. It is only compared to you that perhaps someone would think I am not.” 

Byleth huffs a soft laugh. “Yes, that’s probably true.” He props himself up on an elbow and shifts back on the bed, giving Jeritza space, and then takes his hand away from Jeritza’s unbound hair. 

“You needn’t remove your hands from me entirely,” he says. “I am merely finding myself unable to forget an interaction and it is vexing me.” 

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Byleth asks, patient as ever. He doesn’t move closer, but he does card his fingers through Jeritza’s hair. 

“The little archer was there, tonight,” Jeritza says, at length. “Bernadetta.” He knows Byleth likes him to use people’s names. To have connections with people instead of severing them. 

“Yes. She asked after you. I told her you had gone outside. Should I not have?” Byleth strokes his hair again, winding the strands over his fingers. He likes Jeritza’s hair. He is forever messing with it, when Jeritza is of a mind to allow him. 

“No, it is fine. She and I, when we were at the monastery, during the war. She would take lunch with me.” 

“I remember,” Byleth says, smiling again. “No less than four people asked me if it was all right.” 

“I swore oaths to the Emperor not to raise my hand against an ally,” Jeritza says. “While we were at war. Did they think I would harm her?” 

Byleth gives a little tug on Jeritza’s hair. “I think they thought I was jealous.” 

Jeritza frowns. Oh. That had not occurred to him. “I took tea with you. And meals. Often.” 

“I know. Don’t worry about it.” Byleth smooths Jeritza’s hair back from his face. “You like her.” 

“Do I?” Jeritza asks. “I am curious. Her presence is not displeasing to me. Is that what it means to like someone?” 

Byleth nods. “Yes. That’s how you feel about me, right?” 

“No. All of what I am is yours.” He takes Byleth’s hand from his hair and carries it down, kissing at the knuckles. “My black heart, my demon, whatever is left of the man I once was. I am not capable of such depth of feeling for anyone save you.” 

“That’s sweet,” Byleth says, a faint blush on his cheeks. “All right. Perhaps it is like what you feel for your sister.” 

Jeritza thinks about this. “I do not know. I am simply unused to anyone but you seeking my company. The little archer -- Bernadetta -- she said once we were kindred spirits. That I took my darkness out on the world, while she took it out on herself.” 

“That’s very astute. She’s clever. She always has been.” Byleth traces shapes on Jeritza’s chest with his quick fingers, but eventually he returns to playing with Jeritza’s hair. 

“Her father is an unkind man, then?” 

Byleth nods. “Quite terrible, I’m told.” 

“The mention of him, it made her tremble like she would beside me, before the cavalry rode forth to battle.” 

“You spoke about her father, this evening?” 

Jeritza nods, briefly recounting their conversation. “I offered to kill him. I have no reason to stay my hand, if the Emperor’s shadow also offered the same.” 

“Only you would offer murder as a gift.” Byleth leans in and presses a kiss to his shoulder. “Her saying no does not mean she doesn’t like you, Jeritza.” 

“You are teasing me,” Jeritza says, threading _his_ fingers through Byleth’s dark blue hair and tugging. It is shorter than his, but still satisfying to pull. “Dreadful. That’s why I shall kill you, one day.” 

“Mmhmm,” Byleth murmurs, eyes heavy-lidded in the moonlight. “So you say.” 

“She said she did not wish to ask it of me, that it was not for his sake I should stay my hand, but my own.” Jeritza gentles his grip and carefully pets Byleth like he is one of the cats that roamed the monastery. It’s awkward, as all his attempts at affection are, but Byleth seems to enjoy it. “I do not understand. It would be easy to kill him. Does she think he would kill me? I am the Death Knight. She knows this.” 

“I think she doesn’t want you to kill anyone else, since the war is over.” Byleth strokes Jeritza’s hair out of his face. “She is not meant for it.” 

“No, and I do know that. I would watch out for her, on occasion. When we would fight. She was nervous, and small. But a fierce fighter, when the battle lust took her.” 

“I didn’t know you looked after her in battle." The little smile again. “That’s charming.” 

He shrugs. “I would also look for my sister, though she stayed far behind the front lines as healers often do.” 

“What about me?” Byleth asks, in the tone that Jeritza knows is _teasing_ only because he knows Byleth like a cherished weapon, every curve and cut of him. 

“I watched you only when I could be assured I would be able to enjoy it,” Jeritza says with a soft sigh. “I love to watch you kill. It has been that way since the first time I saw you. The way you cut through bone with that sword, the blood in your hair when you --” 

Byleth’s palm rests warm on Jeritza’s chest. “Your heart races when you speak of it.” He’s enthralled by heartbeats. Sometimes Jeritza wakes up and Byleth’s head is on his chest, his eyes open, feeling the steady thrum of Jeritza’s heart beneath his ribs. 

“Of course. My heart beats for two things. You, and the screams of my enemies upon my scythe.” Jeritza’s mouth ticks up at the side. “And perhaps. Ice cream.” 

Byleth’s laugh makes warmth curl through him like his favorite tea on a cold day. “Of course. You and your sweet delights.”

“She said I should spend time doing things I liked. I suggested you,” says Jeritza. “A delight, though you are only rarely sweet.” 

Byleth’s ears go red. “Hey. I think I’m insulted.” 

Jeritza draws him near. Talking of watching Byleth kill has made him eager to get back to what they were doing, before. “I am...different, now. I still feel the Death Knight. It sends me dreams of such depravity I wake up shaking from how much I _want_ . And yet. I can take tea with my sister, with Constance. And speak to Bernadetta. And have you on my arm when we walk into those tragically dull parties where I am forbidden to kill _anyone_.” 

Byleth smiles so wide, Jeritza sees the briefest flash of teeth. “The parties are pretty boring, aren’t they.” 

“Yes. My demon is quiet, but it will not be for long. And I...miss the things we do, together down in the dark. The war of our own, where I taste blood and death and you fuck me under the stars and their screams echo like music.” He sighs. “Let us be away from here, beloved.” 

“Soon,” Byleth promises, moving closer. He traces his fingers lightly over Jeritza’s mouth. “She thinks you suffer when you take a life. That it would be a burden to you. She does not want that. It is what it means, to be a friend.” 

“But that is foolish,” Jeritza says. “She knows what I am. She saw me clad in my armor, she saw me fight. One more death is nothing to me.” 

“You’re not an easy man to understand,” Byleth says, all infinite patience and warmth. “She wears her darkness differently.” 

“I am death incarnate. It is not that difficult to know me. I have made no secret of my bloodlust.” 

“Yes, but you also like ice cream, roses, and honey-almond tea. And kittens.” He smiles when Jeritza’s face heats. “I’ve seen you pet them.” 

“I do not dislike kittens, that is true. It hardly matters. I will take her father’s life and suffer no torment for it. Should I not?” 

“Killing a lord in peacetime might not be what Lady Edelgard had in mind, when she changed the world,” Byleth says. 

Jeritza huffs. “My world remains the same.” 

“I don’t think you’d be here, with me, if that was true.” Byleth kisses him. “Let me talk to Hubert. All right?” 

“All right.” He’s still a bit confused. “I thought one gives friends a gift. I have seen you do this with the others. The guard captain, Felix. He likes weapons. The loud one with the blue hair, who shouts incessantly --” 

“Caspar,” Byleth corrects. 

“Yes, him. He likes those meat snacks you have in your seemingly endless pockets. You give them these things like you once gave me roses.” 

“Did I stop giving you roses? I’m sorry,” Byleth says, a little frown between his brows. “I will give you more, if you like.” 

“What you give me is better than flowers, beloved. I am simply confused. Perhaps my gift is unwanted, like the time you presented me with a stuffed bear.” 

“You liked that,” Byleth says, a tad defensively. “You still have it. I’ve seen it.” 

“Well, you gave it to me. But I like the other things more. She should like the gift I want to give her, isn’t that how it works? I shall refrain from offering her his head, then. Is that better?” 

“I’ll ask Hubert,” Byleth says, again. “But most people don’t want anyone’s head. That’s standard gift-giving advice. I’m pretty sure.” His voice is wry. “And I would know.” 

“I need not that man’s permission to kill. I am not his to command.” 

“And murder isn’t a present. If you’re going to insist it is, you have to follow the rules. All right?” Byleth has a _voice_ he uses, when he wants attention. He would use it on the battlefield, issuing commands. 

“I am not your soldier, beloved,” Jeritza reminds him. A tad huffy. He does not like to have his pleasures curtailed. “And I - do not wish her to suffer. I will do it quickly. He needn’t feel it, though I would be more than happy to hear him beg for his life.” He doesn’t like the way she looked when she spoke of him. The memories in his own head, of being small and afraid. 

“I know. He’s not a good man. But she also likes pitcher plants, and I think she’d like a bear like the one I gave you. Those things will probably please her more than patricide.” Byleth has that little smile again, the one that means he is teasing. “Murder is not your only gift to give, Jeritza.” 

“Hmph,” Jeritza grumbles, then slides a hand around Byleth’s neck. “I grow weary of talking. Ask the Emperor’s assassin if we may end this man’s life. I suppose if he says no, I could give her a plant. But see he doesn’t say no.” 

Byleth laughs against his mouth. “All right. For what it’s worth, I think he probably will allow it. Hubert doesn’t like her father, either.” 

That is the last they speak of it. 

***

Several months later, Bernadetta von Varley is summoned home from Enbarr. The body of her father has been found out in the gardens, his head neatly removed by something very sharp and someone very good at wielding it. 

On the desk in her father’s study is a pitcher plant tied with a blood-red ribbon. Next to it rests a small stuffed bear dressed in Adrestian colors. 

Bernadetta does not know whether to laugh or cry. But she sleeps that night in her childhood bed with an unlocked door for the first time in her life, and her father’s things are boxed and packed away, never to be seen again.

The bear takes a place of honor on her bed. 

The pitcher plant she puts on the windowsill in the study that is now hers. It grows and thrives in the sunlight, through windows now uncovered. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since there's no one else for Jeritza to kill on Bernie's behalf, he just sends her endless pitcher plants and stuffed bears. That's how presents work, right?

**Author's Note:**

> Hrym means "decrepit," I learned, which I think is interesting. Please forgive any geographical errors, I'm making up a lot. 
> 
> Corpse flowers are super cool, btw. 
> 
> Also, I recruited Felix and Mercedes in my playthrough so that's why they're still around in this story. I also made Felix kill Rodrigue at Arianrhod, oops. I'm a monster.


End file.
